An Unexpected Development
by ToNyEmBlEy
Summary: When lines are crossed and relationships evolve, all that's left is the chaos of uncertainty. Follow these three lovers as they struggle to discover themselves and each other. Rated M for Jack's language and sexual themes.
1. Because You're Worth It

Jack wrenched herself awake, tearing herself away from the bed with fear and anger. Thrashing until her body wound up hitting the cold floor, _hard_.

"Ahhh fuck! Shit! That fucking hurt. Goddamn. Thanks for helping choirboy."

She yelled into the darkness, her words stirring the man sleeping beside her, or beside where she _was_ when she was actually on the bed.

"Nihtmares again? Come here."

A groggy voice said from inside a pillow. A pair of muscular arms extended out from under the bland, vanilla white covers, motioning for her to come and lay back down.

Jack's slender body slunk back up to standing, or whatever you call what Jack does: slouching, brooding, angsting. Her bare skin stretched over her lanky muscles, as she threw out her arms to loosen herself. A taught stomach went shallow as she stuck her chest and threw her arms over her head, petite breasts peaking her modest chest.

"Yeah, every fuckin night. I don't think they're ever going to stop. Damn Cerberus, suck it."

Jack's elegant vocabulary was comparable to her grace as she plopped down into Shepard's arms on the bed. She scooted her way until she was pressed against Shepard's body, his arm falling limply around her waist.

The first night that she had woken him with her screams, Shepard hadn't been able to sleep. He laid there with his usual protective demeanor, drawing small circles into her taught stomach and whispering into her ear for hours. Things like _I love you, _and, _It's okay, I'm here. _At first it wasn't enough. She was too restless. Crazed and twitching like a fox in a corner, though a fox would be more accommodating... and slightly more polite.

Then, after she had calmed down, accepted that she wasn't alone and that she was safe, for now, she eased up on her panting. Shaking the fear off and the images out of her mind, she did the only thing that she could do in the face of such traumatic memories. She cried.

Frantic tears revealing her fear of loss, pain, cages. She gasped silent screams into his chest as he held her close, never saying a word the entire time. What could he say?

What could he say? So many times on so many nights he'd asked himself when he was finally going to have a response to Jack. She was so raw to him, like a flame. So much about her was unadulterated passion. Passionate rage, hatred... even love.

It'd taken so long for her to see that she did love him, truly. She didn't even say she loved him before he left with rest of Hammer squad to get to the beam in London. She didn't have to. Saying those three words were something that she thought she'd never have to do, to be _able _to do. At least not meaning it.

But she did. In the most _Jack-ish _style. They'd just been sitting around the apartment, Shepard cleaning his guns and modifying whatever he could before his next assignment, Jack lounging on an overly-contemporary recliner with her legs slung over one of the arms. She hated that recliner, but Shepard liked it, so really she couldn't do anything. Except tear it all to hell through her constant jumping on it, sporadic lounging and fits of rage where it flew across the living room in a haze of blue biotic energy. She actually hit him one time, though he deserved it. Telling Jack she couldn't come with him on a mission. Saying the situation was _delicate_ and needed a certain degree of _finesse. __**Finesse**__. "As if I can't control myself?!" _Chewing her lip in thought before she left to go help up Shepard with something that sounded like; _Aw fucking shit. John, I'm sorry._

A mindless movie was blaring through the too-loud speakers when she just got up, walked over to his bench, and hovered over his shoulder for a moment, debating the pros and cons to smacking him in the back of the head to get his attention. He turned his head to her though, noticing the shadow cast over his tools.

"Hey. What's up?" His blazing blue eyes gazing up at her on top of a warm smile.

She stood for a moment before pulling his lips to hers. It was a slow kiss, but it was fire. It burned and it raged, yet she pulled away, her eyes blazing behind her dark brown irises. That's when.

"I love you." A short chuckle left lonely for a moment.

"I fuckin love you." The door had closed faster than it opened when Jack walked out after that, leaving Shepard dazed and with a goofy smile.

He let his head hang slightly, rubbing his hand over tired eyes, and laughed. His little fit ended with a big smile and him looking towards the door with a faraway gaze.

"I love you too."

Now here they lay, in each others arms, their world spinning on. Almost complete.

Suddenly completed by the sound of a one Miranda Lawson walking through the bedroom door, worried.

"Jack? I heard the screams. Are you okay?" The the ivory skin between the fierce brows pinched together in concern as her lips pressed lightly on the back of the ex-con's neck.

"Don't worry, just nightmares. Something about a cage. Don't really want to think about that shit." Jack said rolling onto her back so she could hold her other lover. Dark raven hair cascaded over Jack's frame as Miranda laid her head on the Jack's chest.

"Fuck Miri, didn't think I'd ever see so much concern from the Cerberus cheerleader." A sly grin pulled at the edges of the con's lips.

"Please, as if I'd waste my time worrying over a failed experiment." Miranda shot back with a smile of her own. The insults that had once been genuine and able to start many a catfight, were now reduced to nothing more than playful jabs. Shepard couldn't understand for the life of him how those two ever decided that this crazy relationship could ever work.

This triangle had formed without a single word. No one aknowledged it at some point, no one held a vote or just decided it. It just happened. For months, all three of them had gravitated towards the inevitable center.

Though if you were to be insistent and wanted to really narrow down just exactly when things started to change, it had to be the moment Shepard had defended Jack from Miranda. That moment was a titular turning point for Jack, it was something new and foreign. She'd never been defended by anyone. No one had ever stood by her side and declared her right or deserving, but Shepard did.

He did, not only to a Cerberus bimbo bitch, but a woman everyone knew he'd been fooling around with, or at least working his way towards it. Jack stood behind Shepard as he railed into his XO and sent her hauling back into her prim and proper little office.

Shepard knew that Miranda wasn't going to forgive him, that is was going to be while before she let him kiss her, let alone hold her...or even _touch _her in general. That was something he was willing to go through though. After Miranda had stomped off, under orders to do so, Jack spun him around, staring at him with crazed eyes full of confusion.

"The fuck did do you do that for?" She said, locking her stare into his bold blue eyes.

"Why the fuck do you even care, choirboy?" Jack couldn't help but start shaking. How could he treat her like charity case? Send her his pity in the front of doing the right thing. She didn't need the damn help and like hell would she ever ask for if she just so happened to need it.

"Because you're worth it. You might not think so, but you are." She was stunned. She froze, unable to form a word or fumble a sound from her dumbfounded lips. So she leapt onto him, giving him an awkward hug, then running through the ship to retreat to her hole in engineering. That's when it started to change, not just for Jack, but for Miranda as well.

In Miranda's eyes, within an instant, Jack had gone from a degenerate ex-con that had no worth to a battarian slaver, to this new creature that was immensely captivating. And it was all because of Shepard.

Miri knew, right then, that if **Shepard **believed she wasn't nothing, that if he was willing to defend her, that she was _worth_ something, she would have to find out what it was. Jack could no longer be filed off as a _loose end_ or _failed experiment_. She was now human to the Cerberus agent. And every human has a purpose... you just have to find it.


	2. Swallow Your Pride

Jack had her feet hooked into the bars lining the floor above her hidey hole. With each contraction of her stomach she brought her head up to her knees into a full vertical crunch. She'd lost count as to what number she was on. Like she gave a shit anyway. She was too angry, to hurt, to vindictive... too touched.

Something in her defenses, all of her static barriers that kept everything at bay through a harsh demeanor and intimidation, had weakened. For barely a second, a slight moment of softness that hadn't happened in years. And it wasn't fair. She wasn't ready for that bullshit. Shepard had snuck one up on her.

But here she was now, venting and hating all over again. Hot breath blowing through her clenched teeth as her muscles screamed at her to stop. Every time she brought herself up she let loose another curse.

"Ah! Fucking cheerleader."

"Ungh! Stupid big-titted bitch."

"Ah fuck. Drag you around by your stupid-ass hair."

Miranda stood in the open entryway besides Jack's cot, just listening to the entertaining display of petty outbursts.

"No, tell me how you really feel." The raven haired women said with a smirk behind Jack's back.

"What the shit?!" Was all the convict could say before crashing to the ground startled. A loud bang shot into the darkness as her head bounced off the metallic grates beneath her. Miranda couldn't help but chuckle. She didn't mean for Jack to hurt herself, not that she hadn't hoped for it of course.

She reached down to grab the slender tattooed arms, pulling the small woman to her feet.

"I got it, I got it! Get your damn hands off me. Fuck that hurt. What the hell's wrong with you? What, you haven't had enough? You wanna continue this shit down here?" Jack's body lit up a biotic blue-purple and hummed in the small space. Brilliant light waves danced along the dark walls, conflicting shadows cast around against the red light above her bed.

Miranda stood still though, hands twined between her back, chest out and chin up. Proud. She looked proud because she couldn't feel any **less** for what she was about to do.

"No, actually. I didn't come here to fight you... Jack." She struggled to get the name out without making it sound like an insult. Though malice still laced her words, she held most of it back not wanting to betray her original goal there.

"Then what do you want, Cheerleader? You heard Shepard, deck apart at all times. Should I go tell him you're violating orders?" Jack had a mischeivous grin on her full lips. Miranda found them striking. They were full and plump, but they somehow fit. They rested along that jawline that cut so sharply so perfectly. She couldn't help but stare.

Jack had a strong jaw that would tense and tighten as she clenched her teeth in anger. The muscles by her temple never seemed to rest. Yet her cheeks were soft, and they angled in such a cohesive way across her face, framing her lips and rigid nose that blended perfectly into her brow, hardset lines above her dark eyes.

"Hey! What the hell Cheerleader? You in there?" Jack accused, now more confused than angry. Wondering why the bitch across from her had glazed eyes and her held tilted slightly to the side, as if she was studying something.

Miranda snapped back into attention, the once soft gaze hardened again and her lips pressed into that familiar hard line.

"I came to apologize. I shouldn't have said what I did." For some reason Miranda let her stiff shoulders fall and let a breath out that she didn't realize that she had been holding. So she sat down at the edge of the bed, head in her hands and long locks of hair resting over her arms.

"The truth is that I don't know what to think anymore, I haven't slept in days, and everyone is tense. The air in this ship is so tight that there's no room to breath." There was a pause that hung in the space between the two biotics. Jack was transfixed on the woman before her. A woman that she'd never seen this... _loose_.

Miranda seemed like a spring to Jack. An uppity bitch spring that was always coiled too tight, but here she sat. She looked so different like this, she almost seemed human.

"You didn't deserve any that, Jack. I know what's it's like to forced into a mold of something you're not." The calm woman was suddenly silenced by two furious hands that gripped under her collar. Jack was stronger than she thought as her back collided with the piping to her side.

"Don't you **ever** compare us! You have no fucking clue what it was like! Nothing you're fucked up _**daddy**_ever did to you could measure up to the hell I was put through!" Jack roared her biotics to life and raised her hand higher up to Miranda's throat.

Miranda went to fight back, but she knew there was no danger. It was more of a demonstration.

"Imagine **this** happening every night! Pigs holding you down while you can't say a goddamn thing! Being starved for days on end, thrown out to the dogs and blacking out until all you hear is the packing sound of bone against bloody meat! Needles being shoved into every part of you while you're strapped down too cold steel. Scalpels cutting into you while you're **awake** and then being punished for acknowledging the pain!"

Jack let go and pushed her away and wrapped her hands around her head, tears brimming at her eyes. Squeezing as if it would make the memories go away. Suddenly the room seemed too dark.

"You're nothing like me. Now get the fuck out." She started pacing back and forth wildly, hands still gripped to her temples rubbing and pushing.

Miranda stood waiting. What for, she didn't know, but after a few seconds she felt as if she was seeing something she shouldn't.

Turning away from the convict, she slowed her steps to turn and face the broken woman.

"I _am_ sorry. I can't imagine how you feel, but I can understand. I'm not that heartless, Jack." With those parting condolences she left. Quick steps with even quicker thoughts racing through her mind.

_Just what **did** Cerberus know about Pragia. _

She had to know. Was she the bad guy here? Was she guilty?

Jack had froze, her eyes following Miranda.

"_No, you don't understand. __**No one**__ understands. And they never will._" The whispers barely escaped her lips before she collapsed onto her cot, breaking down once again into her pillow.


	3. Research

The darkened office was lit only by orange hues as Miranda scanned through thousands of Cerberus files. She had gone through hundreds of databases, digging for anything of relevance.

First she went by date, then by keywords like_ Pragia, biotic, child, alliance_. Everything relating to the now destroyed facility. She had almost given up when she stumbled upon two things. A spy report about the operations of the Teltin facility, and an incident report filed after the riots at said facility.

_-2171:CE, 1334 Hours-_

_Sir, I've spent three days here now and have remained largely undetected. This is a massive breach. The entire facility has gone rogue. They've exceeded mandate and protocol authority while blatantly ignoring the structured guidelines of this project. You were right to have your suspicions._

_So far I've been able to calculate only a fraction of the casualties just by the morgue occupancy alone. The body count stands at seventy-four. All of them children from ages one to fifteen. Some exceeding that due to showing promise at some point. Each body has a report tag of capabilities at time of death, how many sessions they had survived, and viable organs._

_It's gruesome. And who knows how many times they've dumped the bodies. I suggest immediate termination of this project, though not by direct assertion of force. I suggest sabotage. With your permission I can start a scenario that, once it has ran it's course, would leave no implications of Cerberus to anyone except those filled in on the matter. _

_With me here to give the right nudges and free to do cleanup operations after the peak conflict, this matter would be completely resolved._

_I urgently await your reply._

_-Agent Argon Laypus-_

Miranda's eyes couldn't keep up with the text in front of her fast enough. She reread the report over and over looking for something that wasn't there; proof that The Illusive Man hadn't lied to her. He'd told her that they had no knowledge about what had happened at Teltin. The second report flashed onto her screen.

_-2171:CE 1752 Hours-_

_The facility is in ruins, from our initial reports, there seem to be no survivors, though there is a missing child. Code named: Subject Zero. She may have escaped the facility, but the wildlife and flora/fauna here are inhospitable to human life. She should not be worried about._

_She is a curiosity. This whole program seems to be centered around her. Tests that were vetoed in favor of operations with a higher survival ratio, entire batches of "test subjects" thrown at a procedure to make sure that it wouldn't harm her. There's no official records of her or progress reports that we can find. It seems that the head of the program might have kept them to himself, as there are no local copies in the facilities databases. _

_Officially, she doesn't exist. So even if she managed to somehow survive, nothing could trace back to us. I recommend moving on from this debacle and focusing on future endeavors. This mess has resolved itself._

_-Agent Argon Larpus-_

Anger twinged on Miranda's nerves after she'd taken in the report and covered her tracks. She let it set in for a moment. There was no anger about what had been done, the past was just that: the past. Choices had been made and losses had to be recovered, anonymity had to be maintained.

The anger came from the lie. The Illusive Man's lie. He'd always been up front with her in the past, even about the most sensitive topics and intel. Why now? Why lie to her now? A question she couldn't answer.

The other thing that bothered her now was her wounded pride. Her word was something she carried highly, even if the words were meant to be hurtful, she would always _mean _them. Believe them. Spite was a mindset Miranda despised.

She was wrong, the girl who was always so sure, so _correct, _wrong. Jack wasn't crazy, her countless years of blaming weren't in vain. The Teltin facility may have gone rogue, but Cerberus started it. The original initiative of torturing innocent children to make better biotics, had been from them.

Cerberus was _guilty_.

There was only one man that Miranda could talk to about this, who would understand or try to understand what she was feeling at the moment.

Shepard.


	4. Validation

There are people who talk. There are people who do. There are people who listen. Then there's Shepard. He does all three. So he wasn't surprised to hear his cabin doors open with a hiss and the sound of heels against the floor. About an hour ago, Shepard had already prepared for an argument. All of his words were picked out. The usual comebacks and lines about defending his decision.

Unlike usual he was laying on his bed, the sheets perfectly uniform. The comforter tightly bound and not a crease would have been seen if not for him disrupting the usual routine of spartan tidiness. Only doing so because of the krogan on Pragia had charged him... hard. So Shepard was sore.

"Hell. Miri, I'm not gonna fight with you. You were out of line. There is nothing that gives you the right to judge her like that." A harsh reprimand in it's own right, though even more so when said from a lover, it was answered only by a perfect form sitting on the edge of his bed, facing away.

"I know." Those words were not what Shepard had expected.

"I was wrong." **Those** words he definitely had not expected.

Miranda sat silent. On her way up there she had so much she was going to tell him. So much that she needed to get off her chest, all the emotions that needed venting. But now, sitting here and reliving the images of Jack breaking down, she had nothing to say. She could only feel a monumental schism in her suddenly changing outlook on the Convict. Such a rapid change in perspective threw her for a loop that she couldn't stop.

"I apologized to her. Or at least tried to. Not that it helped much." She said with a half smile, a worn-down attempt at trying to soften the tension.

"Then I went through the Cerberus databases. The Illusive Man lied. Right to my face, to yours. The Teltin facility had gone rogue, but it was still a Cerberus program. He even knew everything about it after one of his agents infiltrated and integrated into the staff. He sent him a report requesting permission to terminate the program. I'm sure that he was somehow the catalyst for the riots."

Shepard sat up quickly, hands falling onto his knees, one raised up to his head rubbing his temple.

"So, they didn't even try recover anything? No disciplinary action? They just purged it and swept it all under the rug?" It was hard to believe, but not something he would put past them. It made Shepard sad how quickly he'd accepted Cerberus's guilt and how little he cared at the moment. He was too focused on trying to stop the Collectors to care.

"Exactly. Shepard I'm not here to talk about the atrocities our organization has committed... I need your help with something." It didn't seem possible, but Miranda's voice got even quieter, shallow among the hum of the ship.

"Anything, Miranda. What do you need?" Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her back onto the bed, leaving her on her side with Shepard behind her, pulling her tight against him.

"There's this feeling I can't shake. She's gone her entire life thinking she's crazy. Had Cerberus denying everything. Even if she knew that it was true beyond a doubt, can you imagine no one believing or listening to you for that long? Imagine carrying something like for nearly fifteen years. I just want to give her some sort of validation." It was hard to share things like this, her innermost thoughts that weighted her down. But she couldn't help it with Shepard. Something about him coaxed everything out of you. Your best. Your worst. Your pride and fears.

"Then do it. Just tell her. The worst that could happen is nothing. She could just not care and send you packing out of there like I'm assuming just happened, or maybe, just maybe, she gains a miniscule amount of respect for you. At the very least a little less hatred." He was right. Miranda knew he was and that she should just tell her, but she just _couldn't_. She didn't know how.

"Do you think it'd make a difference? Would it really help?" Insurmountable doubt upon a previous failure beckoned to her to leave the issue alone.

"I don't know. But will that feeling go away if you keep that information to yourself?"

For the first time, for as far as she can remember, Miranda didn't know. What to do, what to say, or what to think. She was lost, but she could see only one option.

–

Jack's vision burned images into her eyelids. Swirling spectacles of fear and pain shrouded in anger. Violent sunbursts that faded into one another in the void, roaming from capillary to capillary. Each blood vessel a pulsing pattern upon the canvas. Light flutters brightened the space before darkening again and flooding a new tapestry onto the heavy lids above them.

Her dark irises expanded as she opened her eyes at the sound of footsteps. A small flicker from somewhere inside her that she didn't register. Body leaning forward and whipping around with a question on the lips.

"Shepard? That you?"

The form that owned the footsteps walked from the shadowy entry with a slowness that almost seemed uncertain. It caused a groan and agitated huff from Jack, unlike her usual candor.

"What do you want, Cerberus? You made your peace. Leave me alone." No words were rebutted. No stuttering condolences or jumbled platitudes. Miranda just walked over with a data-pad and held it in front of her. A bright orange and white logo up in the corner marked the files within to be official records.

Jack's legs swung over the edge of her cot and her hand darted out to take the glowing data-pad from the gloved hand, deft fingers pawing at the contents, scrolling faster than her eyes could keep up with, let alone comprehend.

"You were right. Cerberus knew all along. You're not crazy Jack." Before the heavy atmosphere could weigh Miranda down any further, she turned on her heel and walked away. Only to be stopped by a quivering voice at the threshold of the steps back onto the engineering deck.

"Wait!" Jack didn't look away from her hands, she dared not move, not even blink, in fear that everything inside her would pour from her. Jack would never have thought that something as useless as a situation report could change anything. As if it could ever change that fact the she knew what happened. The fact the she wore the scars as proof. That she wore the emotional pain as proof. The she held everything she had become as proof.

But that data-pad in her hand was like fire, like a supernova. Something that she was so past that she didn't realize how much she _wasn't _past it.

Jack didn't think she could ever change. That she'd ever be anything different than the experiment that got away. The failed prodigy of a fucked up goal. She stared at the words in her hands and saw something she hadn't seen in over a decade.

Recovery.

"_Thank you._"


	5. Just Maybe

Shepard cried out in pain, slumped against the chitinous wall he was using for cover. His shields were overloaded by Harbinger and a collector particle beam ripped through his armor.

"Aw fuck! Dammit! Arghhhaahh!" A roar escaped his lungs as he ripped off the molten armor from his left arm and shoulder, a puckered burn already rippling its way across the beams path.

"Damn." Miranda hissed under breath, trying to hide her panic and resist the urge to rush over to John. Her brows creasing and biotics flying across the collector ship.

Jack however couldn't do that. In a rage she launched out a massive shockwave. The blue wave thundered across the ship in wondrous ferocity, tossing aside anything in it's path. Ripping out cover, shearing off insectoid limbs with the force. By the time she got to Shepard her implant burned and the barrel to her scimitar shotgun was glowing white.

"Give me your arm!" She yelled at him with worried eyes and concerned snarl, if a snarl could sound concerned, with Jack you had to learn the tone of multiple things. Shepard cringed and tried to fire his rifle over cover again.

"Motherfucker! Give me your goddamn **arm**!" Her small hands gripped tight around his reluctant wrist. As quickly as she could, she stripped off the wreckage of his ruined armor from his arm, tracing the beams path from his thumb to shoulder, applying medi-gel along the unnatural incision. Shepard meanwhile pulled a frag grenade from it's compartment, set it to impact and beaned it at three entrenched collector troopers, sending gore flying across the ship.

Then the firing stopped. Only the sounds of their haggard breathing could be heard. Miranda stood from cover to assess her surroundings, finding the battlefield to have gone cold.

"Alright, sit-rep?" No sooner had the words left her lips, Harbinger emerged from the rubble of the frag blast and launched a massive warp attack towards her.

Miranda was unaware. She thought she was safe. Her barriers were down. There was no armor to the skin-clad uniform. She'd be disintegrated. Jack knew all of this.

Those singular moments in time where you're pitted against a situation that has two drastically different outcomes are the moments that Jack despised. She did so because you have to make a decision. You are forced to be the variable in an equation that's out of your control. Sometimes you make the obvious choice, the easiest. Other times you want to make the harder choice and you hesitate for a fraction of a second too long. Yet at that moment, for some ungodly reason, there was no hesitation.

Jack charged forward, head down and legs blazing, overcharging her barrier and forcing out it into a slim elliptic bubble. The last few feet of space was covered with a desperate lunge, her arms wrapping tightly around the taller woman. There was no pause for Miranda to even realize what Jack had done before the warp field violently impacted the barrier. It sent them flailing head over heels backwards.

Shepard pulled the carnifex from his hip and sighted down the barrel, adrenaline punching it's way through his system. He pulled the trigger three times before the first round even left the chamber. Every round hit on target, ripping through the possessed troopers elongated head before the body dissipated in a cloud of dark energy and ash.

Miranda hit the wall first, her cheek smacking against the foreign metal and busting the ivory skin into a bloody scar. Rivlets of blood trickled down her face, lightly pooling into her collar and flowing down her uniform, bright white flooded with dark crimson.

Jack had rolled to a stop next to her, making Miranda gasp in wide-eyed horror. The entirety of Jack's back was a pitched watercolor of purple and black bruises, gnarled burns riddled along her ribcage. Small but numerous. Still she stood, unaware of the amazement being heralded her way as she faced opposite of her squad's faces to right herself.

"Son-of-a-**bitch** that hurt. Fuckin a, Cheeleader. Watch your back better!" Whipping around to face her unintended charge, all she saw were eyes on her and Miranda rushing over to Jack with medi-gel for the bright red splotches starting to inflame along her ribs.

"Ow! That stings, watch what your doing." Jack hissed at the woman on one knee beside her who was trying, keyword: trying, to treat her. Though it was difficult when you're swatted away over and over.

"Jack, let her treat the wounds, you can go to med-bay when we get off this damn ship. Miranda you still have the IFF?"

Shepard nodded when Miranda patted the compartment on her hip. She was happy that it hadn't been dislodged during the blast. With the sheer drop beneath them, it would have been impossible to recover it, making them leave the ship empty-handed.

That thought led her back to the blast again. Why would Jack do that? The last she'd known Jack wanted her dead anyways, or was at least totally indifferent to her mortality. Yet she had saved her. No, not just saved her. Risked her own life. Threw herself in harms way to make sure that her squadmate survived.

The events that played out on the collector vessel stewed within her head all the way back to the ship.

–

Not much could be done about John's arm except a medicated wrap with an advanced burn salve and a minor antibiotic, as well as keeping it aerated as much as possible. Which meant that his arm was going to be unarmored for a few missions, nothing that really hindered progress, just a small annoyance. He wanted to ignore the advice but he knew better than disregard Dr. Chakwas' recommendations.

Jack was just as unfortunate. The burns were easily treated with a wrap and some ointment. No bones had been broken, but a few strained muscles and a lot of bruising. Things only time could fix.

For now she sat in the med-bay while Karin looked over the x-rays and readings she had taken from Jack's biotic amp. She was troubled by it, though she couldn't decipher whether or not the conditions of it had existed before or after the warp field her barriers had taken today.

Mordin stood beside her, he just was as perplexed as Karin was. Most biotic amps were easily identifiable by the nervous system. All the connections and hardware were able to be scanned and logged. Neuroscientists could, theoretically, identify who the patient was just by studying the state and connections of their amp.

Jack's amp brought such wonder because where a typical biotic amp has a few hundred points of connection, followed by a couple thousand neural pathways formed in-between them, Jack's had nearly a hundred thousand points of connection, and the pathways were immeasurable.

This leads to supercharged biotics, outbursts of energy, larger times of sustained use, and even higher effects on cognitive function. By all means, Jack, if she had a whim to, could very well take complete control of her body and mind. Take the reigns over even the most autonomous functions like breathing, unconscious thought processes, internal temperature, blood pressure, even heart-rate. All through biotics.

Her nervous system had been constantly self-improving over her lifetime. Whereas most biotics have the amp using the nervous system as a tool, it was the opposite with Jack. She had been unconsciously been self-improving for nearly a decade. Her biotic power was essentially only limited by time. The older she gets the more it would improve.

Though when Mordin tried to tell her this, all he got was a shoulder shrug and a "Fuck it."

Eventually, she got both of the doctors to leave her alone and release her.

She was starving and had missed dinner because of all the damn tests. From her pocket, she retrieved a protein bar and scarfed it down, her stomach growling in response.

Across the mess hall she heard a chuckle and call. "Jack, if you're hungry I can pull some leftovers out for you."

One of the only crew members she didn't want to throw out of a fuckin airlock. In fact, she admitted she kinda liked his company. He wasn't all bullshit.

"Thanks Rupert. Ungh!" Sitting down was painful, breathing was painful, moving was painful. Pretty much everything she tried to do was painful.

Several platefuls of leftovers were set in front of her and for once, she actually like the scent of it.

"Hey! Why doesn't this smell like ass?" She hollered between shoving spoonfuls of food into her mouth.

"Ah, you noticed that, did ya? You can thank Shepard for the upgrade. He came by and asked if we needed anything, I gave him a list and he said that he had business on the Citadel anyway. Then we docked, next thing ya know crate after crate of provisions are being loaded on."

Rupert smiled at his new cooking-ware and the thought of all the meals he could prepare, Jack just nodded and stored the information away in the _reasons Shepard is a choirboy_ section of her memory.

Seriously though, every time she walked by the crew, all she heard were them singing his praises, that and a few rumors. Rumors that put an unknown fire in her. Mostly about who the commander was bending over his bed, names kept flying by, Chambers, Lawson, T'soni. She never recognized that last one up until a few days before when she decided to look it up on the extranet. Some asari with big tits and ridiculously big blue eyes.

Nothing was concrete, just loads of unproven gossip and circulated bullshit. She was left to eat in silence when Rupert remembered he still had some things to do on his checklist.

It was a simple pleasure that Jack had come to count on some nights. During the later shifts the Normandy was a calm vessel. There were nights when it would still carry a bit of bustle, like a small ant colony looking to have an early start the next day. But most of the time there would be a few stray crewman who could never get used to the routine of a simulated day.

There were no setting suns in space. No light blue dawn from the rays of the sun piercing through passing clouds. A days events weren't attached to the height of the sun in the sky, but from the hands of a clock. Some crewmen would forever be restless on a ship. Your mind is so hard set in it's ways that you usually wont feel the need to sleep until that sun starts descending.

Anderson had once told Shepard that insomniacs make some of the best soldiers. Shepard hadn't understood what he meant until he'd spent more time on space vessels. Something about a ship, maybe it's contours or the constant underlying hum that snakes through the ship, keeps your attention. As if a siren luring an unwary traveler to doom.

Jack held no such fascination though. Her preference for the later shifts or 'nights' were more of yearning for loneliness. It was a double edged sword to her. Loneliness was a gift to herself as well as a punishment. She did like to be alone, no arguments there, but as with most humans, it ate at her. Humans are strange creatures, prone to social mutations that leave us in a constant state of duality.

She'd finished her food minutes ago, now she sat there thinking. Not about anything in particular, just nonsense thoughts that swirled into a haze of wispy nothingness.

Her ruminations were all but fractured as that rumbling voice rung at her from across the table.

"Enjoy your meal?" A small hiss escaped his lips when he tried to move his left arm across the table to knock her plates in emphasis, the pain had opted him to just nod his head towards them.

"Hey, Shepard. Yeah, wasn't half bad for once. Heard you had a lot to do with that." Her chin rested on top of her fists, steadily swaying, a light grin pulling at the corner of her lips.

Shep settled into the bench along the mess table a little more, ready for a conversation, or at least a well needed moment of reprieve.

"Eh, figured a crew going on a suicide mission deserves a few good meals before hitting that relay. And besides, I had to eat that crap too... my motivations weren't _just_ for the crew. Win win in my eyes." The trademark 'Shepard smile' graced his lips. A full smile that pulled high into his cheeks, little creases forming at the corners, barley formed laugh lines showing.

Shepard's features seemed so multiplicative to Jack, she couldn't wrap her head around them. When he smiled it was just mesmerizing. It was inviting, comforting, confident, almost happy. But when he was angry, his heavy brow lowered into a dangerous glare, an undiluted leer that sent shivers down your spine. Those blue eyes darkened into a steel gray mirage and never moved. Yet those times of concentration were the moments you could truly take into the complexity of his expressions. His lips would set into a hard line, a grimace that held nothing but strategy and tactical orders. A steady monotone that was so hard to read and convincing that even the most manipulative and persuasive scoundrel could be swayed and deterred by it.

"Hey, um... speaking of motivations. I really appreciate what you did for me today. You got me out of a rough spot, I know, and I do thank you, but I can't help but ask. Why?" This look on his face though, a subtle uncertainty in his eyes, a questioning look of flickering eyes that snapped between her and the table constantly, it was new. Or new to her.

Truthfully, she'd no answer for him. None she felt like giving, or thinking about... or admitting. So she gaped at him, before turning her suddenly undivided attention to the scratch on the table underneath her thumb. A small scraping noise kept grinding away as her thumbnail kept catching on the rough ridges. A little canyon among the smooth metal surface. Shepard's voice broke the impasse.

"Admit it, you're starting to like me." Jack's insides burned at his words in place of the blush she suppressed. But the commander just sat there with his shit-eating grin as if he'd just one a very challenging game of tic-tac-gofuckyourself.

"It's not a bad thing to make a friend, Jack. Sometimes you need more than a mercenary watching your back. Besides Zaeed. He's cool." His rough hand reach out to her nervous fingers, but she ripped them away out of habit.

This was too close. To far inward. This fucker was somewhere that she didn't want him, somewhere he shouldn't be for his own good.

"What? You wan't a fuckin medal? So I don't want you dead, or at least not now. That's an accomplishment to you? Well most people who come this close end up dead. And if I call you _friend_ then you're definitely dead. In case you can't follow the damn dots. You're better off dropping this shit." That damn smile never faded, didn't even falter.

"In case _you_ forgot; I've already died. Remember? So I think I'm safe. And besides, I know there's more to you than this _'I don't need shit'_ routine. If I didn't think there was, I wouldn't bother." That grin was lower, a tad more serious than the one he was wearing before, as if switching from casual dress pants to pressed slacks for a formal event.

Before she could retaliate, and she was going to, he stood with a heave and spasm of pain, wincing as his skin fired off damaged nerve impulses into his brain.

"Whoa, yeah I'm gonna grab a few painkillers. I know your amp is killing you right now. You want me to grab you something?" It stopped. That bubbling anger fizzled out before it had even began to erupt and she cursed it. She had counted on it to debuff this whole conversation, but he'd neutralized it. Placating and genuine words often mingle among each other as half-brothers or distant cousins: so much alike but so different in so many ways. But Shepard was so genuine.

Jack hated it. She hated that she couldn't hate that man. Well, she did at first. The first impression being he was a self-righteous goody who wanted to appeal to his masses. Time though, proved otherwise. At least for now, for her.

Since she couldn't be an ass towards him she gave up.

"Don't like painkillers. It's like dulling your own edge. I don't like that. I'd rather just deal with it. Sleeping even bothers me. Sleep is just an easy opportunity for someone to put a knife in your back." Jack kicked another seat farther out from the table and plopped her legs onto it, one ankle crossed over the over.

Shepard understood that last part. Sleep was a waste of time to him. Mainly because every time he fell asleep he always woke up more tired than he was before. So he just shrugged and threw her a _suit yourself._

His steps carried him away to the med bay doors in a fairly even pace. Jack was about to get up when just one more voice called over her shoulder.

"Why?" Miranda's words went hollow on Jack's ears.

"For fuck's sake. Doesn't anybody have _anything_ to do besides try and talk to me? Goddamn, I'm not a shrink. You want an ear to fill? Go talk to Chambers." Jack threw her hands up in dramatic emphasis.

"No, I'm not going anywhere until you give me one good reason on why you didn't let that warp tear me apart. You can lie and say you didn't want to piss off Shepard, but you're not fooling me. What, do want to kill me yourself? You'd rather have the satisfaction of my death on your own terms?"

"Hey, fuckin hey. Don't act like you know what's going on in _my _head. You don't even know me and you _really_ don't know how much I don't give a damn about your life." She got up, kicking the chair across the floor and closing the distance between the two to nearly a foot.

"This _might_ _come _as a surprise to you, Cheerleader, but I'm human. I couldn't just let you die." Jack said, her piercing eyes smoldering beneath her brow.

"_But why?_ Why put yourself in harms way? You owe me nothing and I doubt you're looking to coax a life-debt out of me. Just give me one reason. Just one, and I won't bring it up again."

"You want a reason? Okay. You want honesty, an actual answer?" Jack said. The gap had closed even more, now no more than a few inches spanned the bridge between their lips. Anxious breaths heaving from heated lungs.

"I saved your ass because maybe, just maybe, you're worth it. You might work for the devil but the demons you hold are your own. I couldn't let you die because my time here has shown me that giving a fuck might just make everyone's lives a little better. And maybe I'm trying to change. Not that I fuckin want to, but I think I need to. Might as well start by saving some stupid bitch who can't watch her own ass."

Their gaze burned, both locked into the others' lingering stare.

"I'm finished explaining myself to you for one night." Without a single _fuck you_ Jack walked away. Once again leaving the Cerberus agent to question her countless preconceptions.

Her little-big world constantly kept shifting, warping on contact with the dynamic paradigms of pragmatism and recovery. Only two things remaining truly constant: Her need for Shepard, and her growing fascination with Jack.

"Hey, you okay? Saw what happened. What'd she say?" John stood alongside Miranda, arm hooked around her hip, other cradling his own shoulder.

"Nothing. It's not something I want to dwell on at the moment. Come on. Let's go lay down. I think I need some sleep."

And so Miranda slept, never having the slightest inkling as to what was going to happen the next day.


	6. Fire

"Again. Like I showed you." Samara spat impatiently. The justicar was a wise woman who had been formed and shaped by the passing of centuries, honed in the heat of battle for nearly a millennium, cunning in her teaching and usually tolerate with difficult students... but Jack was something entirely different.

Samara wouldn't even call her a child. At least a child would learn, or at least _attempt_ to save themselves the struggle of doing the same rigorous task again and again.

Jack leapt into the air once more, throwing her biotic energy out to try and defy gravity as her asari teacher could. The attempt ended in her crumpling into the floor and the surrounding cargo being slid back a few feet from the consequential shockwave.

"Damn it, Jack. Listen to me. I said let the energy flow, you are **pushing**. You're holding on too tightly and failing to even grasp the thought that _l__ess_ is _more_. You can't force everything. If you don't grasp that concept then I don't see the need to continue this any further. I will return as soon as you think you're ready to listen. I'll not scream at a wall any longer."

The blue-skinned huntress stomped away muttering until she was finally out of the cargo hold all together. Jack stood breathless with her heart slamming against the walls of her chest. She swore she could feel her sternum bumping against her skin.

Beads of sweat cascaded off of her head, hair dripping at the fringe that was forming along her hairline. To help herself catch her breath she threw her arms over her head, also taking the time to rub at her amp. It was starting to burn again. She couldn't keep that shit up.

Trying to use biotics to alter your own weight was a bit more trying than she had thought in the first place. It was like catching water in your hands: It's easy to catch a slight leak by cupping your palms together, but when that leak starts growing to a flood, then energy just starts to bleed out, like a heater trying to warm a room far to big for it.

"She's right, you know. You need to loosen up a little bit. Sometimes a small change can make a huge difference." Miranda said from the ground next to her, the ivory skin on her stomach stretched tightly over the contracting muscles as she pulled her elbows up to her knees at a practiced pace.

"Oh really, and just what the hell am I supposed to change?" Jack shot at her before moving over to her punching bag that dangled from a hollowed out cargo bin. For such a petite girl, she was able to dish out an astonishing amount of damage. The bag swayed to and fro with the rhythm of her punches.

A few -_thwacks_- into the bag later and Jack paused to listen again.

"Well, for starters-" Miranda took a breath and stood, wiping her brow free of stray hair that escaped her messy up-do. "-try to take every chance possible to increase your biotic uses."

An eyebrow arched at the agent before she continued, speaking like an uppity bitch that likes to hear herself talk.

"You've seen how Samara fights, but have you seen her little habits? Noticed how much she does with biotics? Last evening, during dinner, she pulled the salt over to her plate with the swish of her finger. That's not something she has to think about. Do you understand? Biotics are not just a weapon to her, they're a tool. An advantage that she utilizes daily for numerous tasks. An unconscious muscle as familiar as her own hands." Miranda motioned Jack over to the nearby modding bench for weapons.

Jack didn't really want to listen to the bimbo anymore, but she'd never hear the end of it if she just tossed the bitch to the side. So she bit her tongue, literally, and let her go on.

"Alright, that thermal clip there. Lift it up." Jack was confused.

"I don't know how to do that shit. Singularities and strategic biotics aren't really my thing." Obviously. Jack was not the control-the-field biotic, but more of a send-you-flying-and-shoot-you-dead-when-you-land-on-your-ass biotic.

"Jack, I'm not asking you for a singularity field, or a lift spread. I'm asking you to pick up that thermal clip with biotics. That simple." Except it wasn't that simple. Changing the gravity around an area with dark energy was simple. Altering the mass of an object through the manipulation of dark energy was simple. Actually using the wildly unknown powers of biotic dark energy to merely lift and object was complicated. You're not trying to alter it, you're not trying to suspend it. You're trying to defeat the very nature of biotics themselves and encase it in a field of energy that is stable, supportive, and controlled.

If anyone knew Jack at all, they'd know that Jack is none of those three things.

"Aw fuck. How am I supposed to do that?" The convict threw her arms down to her pockets, groaning at the lesson the she wasn't being forced to learn.

"For just a moment, don't think of the biotics _as biotics._ Think of them as an extended limb. Feel the extra digits, the muscles, the nerves. Then start to associate that with control. Work and flex them like you would your arm. Try it. You'd be surprised." Jack only stared at her with a rather impolite finger gesture waving through the space between them.

"Jack, let's not play games here. Neither of us particularly enjoy each others' company, just let me help you. No more, no less." The convict gave up and stared at the thermal clip that lay a few feet away. It couldn't have weighed more than a pound, so it shouldn't have been hard to move the dumbass hunk of metal, except that it was.

The damn thing didn't even wiggle. It pissed Jack off.

"Ah! What the fuck does it matter? I don't need to know how to do this shit. I can disintegrate that piece of shit." Her pull field whipped it across the cargo bay in a haze of blue before Miranda yanked it back with one of her own. The small device lightly plopped back into her hand as she looked at Jack.

"It matters because all you have behind your talent is rage. That'll only serve you well for so long. You need to master your abilities. If you did that, Jack, you could do incredible things. Did you know that shockwave you threw out while you were getting to Shepard on board the collector vessel actually caused structural damage to the ship? Now just listen to me for a second. Watch."

Miranda set the clip back down and moved over to where Jack was standing, her bare shoulder lightly rubbing against Jack's. Her arm extended outward, palm flexing ever so slightly, fingertips dancing before forming a weak grip around an imagined object.

The thermal clip start to glow with a gradient blue light. An outline slowly formed around the edges. Then Miranda started to pull her arm in, bringing the clip with it until she was able to reach out and grab it with her opposite hand.

She tossed it back onto the table.

"You try."

Jack was more calm this time. She thought she could replicate what the cheerleader did, but it still didn't quite work. As she was about to lose it, Miranda stepped behind the struggling convict to put her hand alongside Jacks.

"Don't copy my movements. Find your own that are easier and feel more natural."

Lithe fingers went to Jacks wrists, lightly extending the palm, the other came around Jack's waist to cradle the crook of her elbow and push it outwards just a bit.

Miranda's voice was in Jack's ear, soft and confident. A leader.

"There. That might feel a bit more natural."

She trembled. A tremor jumped through the smaller woman's body.

"Now try again, this time, focus. Work the flow of energy around the clip."

She burned. A fire flew through her, cheeks blazing and eyes pointing downward, words caught in her throat.

"Think you can get it?" Suddenly, Miranda's pale skin burned against her own, each little brush of flesh was a shock of heat down her spine.

"_Yeah_." Jack managed to croak. She found her throat to be far too dry.

Slowly yet surely, she felt the invisible muscle expand. Stretching to fit the shape of the clip. When she was confident enough about the steadiness of it, she brought her outstretched palm into a loose fist which brought the clip upright. Then her arm came next, slowly inward.

Then it was over. The clip lay in Miranda's hand. A surprised smirk graced her lips, the gloss on them giving the slightest shine under the florescents.

Miranda was genuinely surprised. "Wow. Nice job, Jack."

"Thanks. I've got shit to do." Jack walked away.

No words. No triumph. No gloating.

Just confusion and tension that was twisting her gut into knots.


	7. Lock the Door

Jack leaned back against the door to the women's shower the moment it closed. Her body was aching. Her head hurt. Her stomach churned.

"EDI, can you lock this door?" Jack squeaked the words. Not wanting anyone to know she was in there. Not her specifically.

"Yes, would you-"

"Just fucking do it. Don't unlock it until I tell you." Jack wasn't in the mood to listen to anyone. Not a word, human or machine.

The mechanism clicked into place and she let out a heavy sigh before undressing.

First her harness. Then her undershirt that she had started to wear. Tightly clinging to her, damp with sweat from her training with Samara. Then the wrap that was covering up her bruises. Some had faded but a few washed out spots of yellow and light purple were still littered across the right side of her ribcage.

Her boots crashed against the wall as she kicked them off, the socks stuffed into each one. The pants that always hung on the soft ridges of her hips slid off the moment she pulled the belt from the loops. Finally, her thong. She owned at least twenty of them, all black.

The water burst out of the shower head. Steam started to fill the small stall, the open door letting the steam roll out even faster to fill the rest of the room.

Jack let the droplets roll off her back, streaking along the painful canvas of her tattoos. Each rounded orb bubbled out the ink underneath, warping the intention of each image. With the stall door swung wide, you could see yourself in the reflective glass above the sinks.

As she studied herself up and down in the mirror, an image flashed through her mind.

_Slender arms around my waist. _

Jack sighed a wanton groan. Her fingertips trailing lightly along the skin above her belly button. The sensitive area relishing her touch.

Another flash.

_Slender arms around my waist. A strong hand around my neck, gently gripping my pulse._

She quivered and her breath hitched higher in her throat. Her hands ghosted to her breasts, palms gliding over her the hardening peaks, modeling to herself for more images to appear in her head.

_His stubble scrapes my skin before he presses his lips to mine. Another pair at my ear, hot breath along my neck._

Jack's fingers twined into her short hair, pulling at her scalp, then they snaked down her body, loosely caught on her hips.

_He pulled my body close, his hardness pressing against me. Her fingers cupping my ass, nails digging into the flesh._

She stopped her hand just above her core. Jack burned all over, warmth spreading through her body and building inside. Like a coil. Winding tighter and tighter.

_Those long fingers slide inside my thigh, dragging the glossed nails across my skin, grazing my lips._

Jack gave in and pressed her fingers to her core, circling the bundle of nerves before dipping lower. She slid two fingers inside her, stretching her slick walls.

She was barley able choke out any words through her ragged gasps. Truly, she was barley able to do anything, not even hear the door to the showers open.

–

Miranda made her way off the elevator, her alabaster skin still bearing a sheen of sweat. Her walk was with a purpose: she wanted to know why Jack stormed off. Miranda thought she was doing a good job to lift up the clip on her second try, especially for an immature, undisciplined, psychopath.

EDI had already informed her that she was locked in the showers. Fortunately the Captain and XO of the ship had override authority on all hatches and doors on the vessel. The mechanism unclicked and slid open as she approached.

Miranda wasn't even able to call out Jack's name before she heard a moan from the end of the stalls.

"_Oh...Fuck me."_

She froze.

"Jack?"

–

**AN: I felt we should take a break from the angst.**


	8. One Time Only, Fucker

_My soul_

_Burns_

_With a fire of darkness._

_Quenched only in the pain_

_Of loneliness._

_I hold my breath, waiting_

_Until spots appear black as the past_

_And fill my lungs with lies of hope._

_I mark myself_

_Black and jagged_

_To cover the scars_

_That make me a monster._

_A warning._

_This is not a place of honor._

_No esteemed dead are buried here._

_- Jacqueline Naught_

_Jack ran for hours. Each step was louder than the previous and gained less distance. Forgotten whispers rushed past her eyes, the color of faded shadows. Silhouettes of long lost faces with features both familiar and foreign._

_She couldn't catch her breath. Each stab of air just barley touched her lungs before being ripped away with a stabbing pain, as if something heavy was on top of her chest._

_It felt as if her very soul were being forced from her._

_But the rushing slowed down and the shadows became still. Statues of eerie silence and eyes the color of forbidden knowledge. These shadows knew things about her that the world would never know. They were in a circle and Jack was their center._

_Each one of her ragged breaths drew them closer, yet she couldn't being herself to hold her breathing._

"_No, no, no, no, no, no. Stay the fuck away from me!" Even closer still._

"_Oh please, no. Get away. Don't touch me!" Gone._

_They vanished. Jack fell. A tumbling free fall. Most people would wake on or just before impact, but not Jack. She would stay asleep and pick herself up after she endured the grotesque smack of her landing. _

_Her eyes locked to her arms where she could see the lines of fingers around her forearms. Through the haze of ethereal nothingness, she heard something. It was smothered, muffled too much to understand. A world built around her. Pieced together by fragments of memory._

_Metal shining with a polished gloss. The smell of disinfectant burning her nostrils. Too-bright lights shone overhead and cast unkind shadows, each holding more menace then the last._

_She could see someone in front of her, far out of reach. What looked like a little girl. Battered clothes and blood-spots riddling the cloth. Small patches missing out of her hair by her ear and what looked like incisions. Blood trickled from a wound above her brow and her upper lip was split. _

_Her eyes were a beautiful dark brown and her chin was sharp against her cheekbones, long locks cascaded past her shoulders._

"_I know you. Don't I?" The words echoed unanswered, bouncing off of invisible walls._

_Jack knew who that little girl was. It takes time, but nearly everyone can recognize themselves. She reached out, offering her hand. The girl backed away._

"_No. No you shouldn't be here. You need to leave before they come back." her little arms wrapped around her chest as she grew more and more nervous._

"_Damn it kid. Come here. I can help you!" Jack moved a little faster before freezing. From far behind her a door opened and slammed with the force of a titan. The girl screamed._

"_Aw fuck! Kid come here!" Once again she ran against futility. Her feet carried her nowhere and he pleas fell upon petrified ears. Thunderous footfalls made their way closer and closer behind Jack._

_Red eyes floated in the darkness behind her, glints of sharp scalpels withing their grasp._

_They closed their distance on the little girl and their shadows covered the actions which bore the screams of pain._

–

Jack's eyes burst open, her scream ripping from her chest. Strong arms were wrapped around hers from behind and her wrists were being controlled by a pair of confident hands.

"No! Get off of me you mother fuckers!" A rush of biotic energy almost left her palms, but her captor was smart. The hands around her wrists tweaked slightly and the energy was cut off.

She was panicking, far too scared to register where she was, who was around her. She kept kicking and screaming, it wasn't until she purged her barrier with a biotic wave that a voice registered in her ears. It was a yell, layered in pain, a choking gasp of frantic lungs.

"_**Jaaack!**_" She knew that timbre. That familiar rumble that was usually so calm was now a ragged scream. It was enough for her to focus.

There were two people by her legs, it was hard to see who in the darkness that was her cubby. Uniform hairline with a trimmed goatee that was blazing red. Ken. She knew that the other must have been Gabby.

Ken's nose was busted pretty bad and Gabby was missing a hunk of shirt on her left shoulder, still throwing up smoke and her skin was bright and burnt.

But behind her, that's what got her looking around. She was hoping that she wasn't wrong about who was behind her. She looked up to see who she needed.

He had a strong chin and hardened jaw. That small scar on his chin and short hair. Brilliant blue eyes. A light beard he hadn't gotten around to shaving.

"Shepard?" He nodded to her and looked into her eyes.

"It's okay. It wasn't real." Underneath her brown irises, John could see what was about to happen. Ken and Gabby stood nervously, twitching and ready to help if Jack's outburst fired up again. Shepard shook his head and nodded to the stairs.

"Ken, Gabby, go ahead and get the med-bay. Get yourselves patched up." They left with a salute, leaving Jack in his arms. Shepard let go of her wrists and leaned back against the wall with a huff. His body still tingled from her barrier purge. To be honest, he wasn't expecting her to curl into his chest.

It was something so simple, and so trusting. Her head nestled into his neck, arms crossed over her chest and knees brought up tight. At first he didn't know how to respond. It seemed so... intimate. It was a gesture he didn't know how to return since it came from Jack. If it had been Miranda or Tali or Ashley or Liara or Kelly or **any** other female, he'd have known just what to do. But it wasn't any of those women. It was Jack.

Jack. The _I don't fuckin need you_ hardass who pushed everyone away. Now here she was. Vulnerable. Afraid. Helpless.

So Shepard provided what he knew best. Comfort. Shelter. Reassurance. His arms wrapped around her tightly and his chin rested on her head while he let her cry. This was something new. Something in him stirred. An unknown fire for the convict that lay in his embrace.

After what seemed like an eternity. She looked up, their gaze meeting with an electric spark arcing between them. Without a thought, she pressed her lips to his. It wasn't wild. It wasn't intense. It wasn't hard.

It was simple, tame, and wrong. They both knew it. But it was shared regardless.

"One time only, fucker."


	9. Well Then

_AN: Okay. So I have to thank the helpful reader, Kendra Iscariette, for pointing out a little error in my progression. See, in the shower scene I had Jack say Miri, totally forgetting that I had planned to introduce that later on and it totally schismed with how I was progressing the building attraction. SO! I followed the wonderful suggestion from Kendra and swapped out Miri for a more ambiguous... expletive. _

_Just in case you actually care, just check towards the last few lines in the last chapter. Thanks Kendra!_

_PS: This is a rather mature chapter. Suggestive winky face._

–

"Wait, so you walked in on her... _doing things_?" Shepard asked so prudently. His eyes wide and lips pressed together to avoid laughing.

"Shepard, It's not funny." Miranda countered back while crossing her arms. A small blush was creeping it's way across her cheeks.

Her lover couldn't hold his laughter any longer.

"I'm sorry babe. I just don't know why you're so worked up over this. I mean seriously. So what? It's a natural thing. Right?" He said through his heavy chuckles.

"No you don't understand and I don't think I want or know how to make you understand why it's making me so uncomfortable. I don't think I could _handle _the whole conversation, let alone go into detail." She groaned before throwing her head into her palms.

She sat on the edge of his bed in the private cabin. Shepard, though, stood against the wall a few feet away, leaning back with one foot crossed over the other and his hands loosely clasped together. A huge grin was still twitching at the edge of his composed smile.

"Just say it then. Put it bluntly and see if I can't piece it together." His lover's eyes emerged between her fingers with a heavy sigh.

"I'm not uncomfortable that I walked in on it. You're right. It's natural. I feel wrong because..." She trailed off, letting her words fall silent just before getting the answer out.

"Beeecaaause?" Shepard exaggerated, his head leaning forward. Miranda just groaned again, like a teen trying to tell their parents that she wrecked the car. The brand new, uninsured car.

"Because... I _liked_ it." She unintentionally shrank back when, at last, she revealed it. Shepard repeated her under his breath before finally clicking it together. His brow shot high above his eyes and his stubble covered jaw dropped.

"Oh. Oh **wow**. That is... whoa." He didn't really mind, but he couldn't help but have his most juvenile fantasies spring into his head in a haze of gasps and arching backs. The feeling of soft liquid velvet around his-

"Shepard?" That was all it took to shake him out of his delusions. A small chest clear and little fit of chuckles and he was able to look her in the eye.

"She kissed me." And he'd told _her_ to be blunt. Miranda was the next in line to have her brow try to escape her face. But she knew what he really meant. If Jack had kissed him and he'd shut it down by making it clear he was taken, John would never have even brought it up. He did bring it up though, even with the context surrounding it.

"And you liked it." She didn't even need to ask. It was clear.

"It seems we're both falling under the same spell." Shepard said.

"A curse, more likely." Miranda shot back. Making Shepard breathe a little less easy. So he did what he thought he needed to do to make things more clear.

There was no hesitation as Shepard pulled Miranda into his arms and tossed her onto his bed. She couldn't even get a hold on him before her hands were pinned together on his headboard with one strong grip. Shepard knew how Miranda liked it. The girl who was in so much control during the day loved being tossed around at night.

His large hand wrapped around her neck with a light grasp, tight enough to feel it, loose enough to love it. Shepard could feel the pulse of his lover quicken under his palm. Her breath caught, coming out in short gasps.

A growl interrupted into her ear.

"Now let's get this straight." Teeth at her earlobe, tugging at the sensitive skin. His breath in her ear was pure sex.

"You walked in and heard Jack _moan_. You knew what she was doing and you _liked _it. _You __**want**__ her. Don't you?"_

Miranda was on fire. Everything burned. Her lips, her skin, her core. The unadulterated arousal that sparked between every fiber of her being screamed at her and her body shook with anticipation.

"_Yes._" She croaked.

"You want to feel her. You want to _taste _her. _Don't you?_"

"_Yes." _John pulled the zipper down on her uniform and pulled it off of her shoulders. Instantly, her fingers went through his hair, pulling him closer to her and smashing her lips to his. She was able to catch his bottom lip between her teeth before he pushed her back down on the bed.

Miranda lifted her hips so invitingly to Shepard, and he got the message. Sliding her uniform down the rest of her body, along with her g-string.

This time Miranda got her way as she sat up to reach behind her and rip off the last thing that was keeping Shepard from her body. The bra hadn't even hit the floor before Shepard attacked her. His tongue swirled around her perfectly pink nipples. She moaned his name to the empty air.

In another swift motion she had his shirt off and rubbing her hands along his hardened chest and taught stomach. A tremor rocked through her for every groove of muscle that her roaming fingers found on him.

He stood on his knees in between her legs and just stared down at his prize for a moment. A short shimmy and he was off the bed, the absence of his warmth elicited the most maddening mewl from the perfect woman on his bed. She knew the sound would drive him insane with need.

John took his time with the process of removing his last articles of clothing. Slowly pulling the buckle away. When he dropped it they didn't hear the metal clang to the floor. Miranda was loving every second of this, but if he was going to make a show, so would she.

A sultry laugh escaped her parted lips. Raven hair whipped through the air as she leaned back on her haunches, throwing her head back and slipping a hand between her legs, the other coming up to cup her breasts with her arm. She was covering herself until he _un_covered himself.

Shepard heaved a restrained sigh. It turned into a rumbling growl as he looked at her eyes. Heavy and lidded. Clouded with lust.

Miranda knew that he must be throbbing with need, she knew that she was. She was right. As her lover pulled down his pants, he took his boxers with them. His hardness slipped from the waistband and Miranda couldn't help but moan at the sight.

John walked to the edge of the bed and dragged Miranda down the sheets so that her hips sat the very edge. He held her legs together, draped over his arm ad the knees.

This is where he _really_ had fun.

Shepard guided himself to her entrance, but stopped, his head barley inside of her. Miri was writhing under him. Her belly was raising and falling under his hand.

"Shepard, come on. Don't do this to me." She begged. Her maddening lover did nothing but grin.

"Don't do what?" He said while slowly pushing inside of her, the slick walls of her sex was blazing against his cock. But he pulled back, stopping just short of completely removing himself.

"That?"

"Oh dear god." She moaned.

"Come on Miri. Say it. Two words."

"Why should I?" Defiance was just a game at this point. John knew what he wanted, and he'd get it. He inched forward again stopping once more to pull back.

It was almost unbearable. The desire was near painful to the agent laid out before Shepard.

"Two words."

Miranda mumbled something and waited with a grin.

"I couldn't hear you Miri." He inched forward one last time. That was that she could take.

"_**Fuck me!**_" Shepard slammed himself into her, bottoming out before pulling his full length out and pushing forward again.

His pace was lightning, every thrust struck that one spot with in her core like no other could. It was as if she was made for him.

Their unrelenting buildup made the actual culmination so much sweeter. Miranda felt that heat rise in her stomach. It was like lava flooding her body, starting low and flooding the rest of her until it was too much.

"Oh! Oh god, Shepard!" She cooed. Her fingers lightly stroked his cheeks. But it was starting. That coil inside her. A white hot coil that was getting tighter and tighter. Winding and winding. She couldn't complete a word between his thrusts so it all strung together as a mass of unadulterated pleasure.

"Shep-ard-I'm-going-to-oh-god-I'm-going-fuck-me!"

A star exploded behind her eyes and her scream rippled though the room as that coil in her belly snapped. She shook and quivered, her walls tightened and trembled around his cock. Driving him over the edge as he spilled his release inside her.

They both collapsed onto the bed breathless and holding each other.

"Just... so we're clear. We understand each other now?" Shepard said, his eyes rolling back into his head.

"Ha, I suspect we do. Are we just going to let things happen. Because we can't deny her and we can't lie to ourselves." Miranda's words were a surprise to Shepard, but not unpleasant.

"I think so. Should be interesting."

"Interesting indeed."

_AN: So... this was my first attempt at a serious sex scene. I've done these before in the past, but they were rather tame. I tried to buck up and add some more detail, make it exciting. How'd I do?_

_PS: I love reviews. They really spur me to get my ass to the keyboard. Criticism is always welcome, just make I it constructive. _

_PPS: Sorry for the late-in-the-day update._

_PPPS: Sorry for apologizing so much._

_PPPPS: Sorry._


	10. Capture the Moment

Miranda saw Shepard off as he left in the shuttle to take Grunt to Tuchanka with Garrus. Something about _it's a guy thing_. She didn't really understand -or care, to be honest- what he meant, but wished him luck. Ever since her 'talk' with Shepard about Jack, her mind had been wandering to very strange places. Vivid places that involved a certain inked up convict.

Every time her eyes closed she was there. Jack dominated Miranda's thoughts. It all centered around the fact that Shepard had already got to share an intimate moment with her. He'd already gotten a taste of the fire that _is_ Jack and she wanted it.

She wasn't needed anywhere at the moment, no reports needed to be written and her duties had all been completed. The beat of her heart doubled as she realized that if there was a moment to go down there, it'd be right then.

She couldn't have gone any faster to the elevator without full-on running. The pace of the lift clashed so hard with her pulse that it drove her insane. When, at last, the doors opened to the engineering deck she bolted out of them. Everything was a blur on the edges of her eyes as she whipped across the steel visage of passing walls.

Her heart was pounding so loud into her ears that she couldn't hear her heels against the grates beneath her. Every atom in her body was racing forward until everything in her being screeched to a sudden halt at the threshold to the stairs that would take Miranda down to _her_.

The once loud beating in her ears was now a muted thud and her breath seemed suddenly shallow. Every step felt like a sheer drop into an unlit abyss, but Miranda continued down. Florescent lights gave way to darkness which gave way to a seeping red glow cracked with cast-away beams of light. Small particles of dust floated through the narrow spectrum.

It was like a steel haven. Conflicting lights weren't what Miranda was looking for, though. When she fully rounded the corner and stepped into the space, Jack was there looking at some of the papers she had pinned on her walls. Most of them were stolen reports from enemy mercs about hidden supply caches or operational data on Omega and other terminus outposts.

She hadn't acknowledged the Cerberus agent yet, but she knew was there. A new problem arose for Miranda. Now that she was there, nailing down a way to do what she wanted was proving to be daunting. There was silence in the air. Jack had mistaken that silence as an attempt to get her attention so she turned.

"You need something?" Her words caused the unprepared woman to stammer. Miranda _stammered_. Stuttered like a child who'd been caught doing something bad. _The indignity_, she thought.

"Oh, uh, n-no." She fumbled out. Jack raised her eyebrow, not really wanting to go into depth about what the hell was up with her.

"Good. Get out." Jack said, neither being rude nor friendly, just matter-of-factly. The even weirder part of all of it was the fact the Miranda had _actually_ turned to walk away when Jack stopped her.

"Hey, what's going on? Why are you acting so damn weird." Miranda turned again, but this time she wasn't unsure. There was no figuring out what she should do. What she wanted was right in front of her. Jack could see that fire in her eyes. It was unsettling.

"Cheerleader?" Miranda looked almost predatory as she sauntered closer. Hips swaying lightly and her raven hair cascaded down over her chest, hooding her already darkened eyes.

"What the fuck, Miranda." The way her name rolled off of Jack's lips was the breaking point. Three short strides and Jack was against the wall with Miranda's hands her on her hips, nails digging into the exposed flesh. Miri couldn't hep but thank those low-slung canvas pants.

Jack trembled. The gap between her pouty lips and Miranda's fiery smirk was less than an inch. Cool breath was washing over her and the heat from their bodies made her ears burn.

"I won't do it until you say so." Miranda said sweetly. The words falling from her lips like silk in the breeze.

Jack could barely move, speaking was something else entirely. The convict was half a head shorter than the agent in front of her.

Time slowed to crawl and the air was filled with Miranda's perfume, an intoxicating rumination of dried lilacs and crushed dragon lilies burning through the wind. The scent reminded Jack of those old Chinese dragons. Fierce and beautiful.

"Kiss me." Their lips met with an explosion that put supernovas to shame. The perfect woman pulled her imperfect prize as close as she could as two arms wrapped around her neck.

Jack pulled away breathless, eyes wide and lidded with lust.

"This doesn't mean that I don't fuckin hate you." She said with the slightest grin.

"That's fine with me."


End file.
